


Names, names

by gwendee



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Acting, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Crushes, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Identity Issues, It's just Aguri, Kayano has a crush on Nagisa, Names, Pre-Relationship, Shiota Nagisa/Kayano Kaede (Mention)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2020-12-28 10:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21135455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendee/pseuds/gwendee
Summary: Kayano always had a little bit too much of a sweet tooth, and incidentally, so did Karma.Written for handy-dandy-headcanons's rarepair week on tumblr!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my fellow sad people, this is a strange little fic I wrote for a Rarepair-week event happening on tumblr right now! You can check out the original post [here](https://handy-dandy-headcanons.tumblr.com/post/187052555016/rules-the-banned-ships-are-given-due-to-how) and this is for Day 1: baking/lunch date. 
> 
> I feel like I got a little out of hand (a lot out of hand) with my original idea and it doesn't quite coincide as well with the prompt as I hope but oh wells, I've written it. 
> 
> It's less of a ship fic and a bit more of a friendship fic but it can be read as pre-relationship and it's, well, weird (as characteristic of all my fics but this is weirder). I know the premise looks like my Karushuu Fic "Nori" but it's not!

**Names, names**

Akari hated sugar and candy and all sweet things, because all she remembered was the taste of melted sugar still on her tongue as her sister lay bleeding out on the cold concrete floor. 

Kayano Kaede loved sweets, because Kayano Kaede was a farce of a shell of a person who ached and hurt and burned too many calories for her tiny body because of the pressure building behind her neck. It hurt her jaw to eat, sometimes, but pudding was always soft and savory and she could pretty much suck it up with a straw, and Kayano Kaede could almost pretend nothing was wrong.

(Her neck stung for months, the skin blistering over and never quite healing all the way through, even after the tentacles blackened and shriveled and were ripped away. Kayano ate pudding and rubbed her cheeks and pressed a cool patch to the back of her neck, and then tied her ponytails a little lower to cover it up until her hair grew out enough to cover it.

When she felt like Akari Yukimura again, she tied her hair back high up because it was a battle scar, a testament to how far she had gone and what she had lost to get there. She’s a little melancholy, when it ends up healing over cleanly, but grateful.)

Itona visits her three days into her hospital stay. He’s alone, which is odd, because they’ve never been friends, but she supposes that they have something in common now that no one else would quite get. He nods in greeting presses a bottle of ointment into her hands.

“Must have given you a fuck hell of a headache, huh,” Akari says, because Itona doesn’t seem to mind her not being Kayano Kaede, and Itona snorts a little at her swearing.

“Like you wouldn’t believe,” he drawls, voice oddly mellow for someone so chaotically aggressive with his debut, but she supposes she’s the patron saint of “looks can be deceiving”. 

“Your brother-in-law,” Itona says, and then makes a face, “he used some sort of cream that helped lessen the pain. I don’t have it, but-”

“I never needed it,” Akari says.

Itona’s smile turns wry. “Yeah,” he says. “I was wrong. You’re the one who’s the strongest in class.”

Akari lets out a bark of laughter. “Don’t let Karma hear you say that.”

When Karma comes to visit, he’s also alone. He looks at her with an odd little smile and then says, “I think my title has been usurped,” and Kayano raises an eyebrow.

“Itona spilled the beans?”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind,” Kayano says. “Nice of you to come check on me, Karma.”

“Yeah, I’m no Nagisa, but,” Karma shrugs. “Figured you might be lonely.”

Kayano frowns at him. Akari’s been lonely for the whole year now, a few more days on the hospital bed wouldn’t hurt. She sees medical staff flitting by, unlike the dark expanse of her house with the ghosts of her sister in the hallways. What would Karma Akabane know about loneliness?

He’s giving her an odd look, mixed with sadness and irony and pity, and Kayano finds herself irritated. “Don’t give me that look,” she snaps.

Karma blinks, and then a grin splits out on his face. “That’s my snarky little Kayano-chan.”

“Why are you really here, Karma?”

“To keep you company,” he says, and drags a chair over. It screeches against the tiles, and Akari winces a little. Itona’s miracle ointment had given her a full night’s sleep for the first time in months, and it’s just out of reach at her bedside table. Karma’s eyes flick to the drawer as her gaze does, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. “We can watch movies together,” he says, and pulls out a laptop from his bag. “You can give your professional’s critic on it.”

Akari sighs. “Fine.”

It’s a little thoughtful that Karma doesn’t cue up any of the films she’s in but he’s clearly done his research on the genres, and he balances the laptop on his knees. Akari recognizes Sakimi Nobitsu, another child actress she’s had the pleasure working with thrice, in an unfamiliar set until it clicks. 

“I almost became Kani-chan,” she says, watching Nobitsu spin around on screen. 

“Why didn’t you?” Karma asks. 

“I turned down the role to go incognito for 3-E,” she says, “my sister had died a day before I got the call.”

Karma pauses the movie. He sounds mildly uncomfortable. “Should I skip this?”

“It’s whatever,” Akari sighs, closing her eyes. “Just play it.”

There’s a click but the background music doesn’t resume, and she opens her eyes to see Karma setting his laptop aside. “I brought you snacks,” he says instead, and very predictably pulls out bowls of pudding. Akari sighs exasperatedly before he even finds the spoons, and he looks at her with his eyebrows raised.

“What?” He says. 

“I don’t like pudding,” she tells him, and at his confused expression, she rolls her eyes. “Kayano Kaede likes pudding. Akari Yukimura doesn’t.”

Karma sets the pudding down. “Why not?” He asks, sounding genuinely curious. Akari weights the pros and cons of elaboration, before deciding that Karma wasn’t about to leave so soon, and she should just be technical about it.

“It’s just for a character,” she says, “the more distant Kayano Kaede is from Akari Yukimura, the less I would slip up, especially with a character this close to my personal life. It’s simply a choice.”

“But you ate pudding all the time,” Karma says. “Did you not enjoy it?”

“Kayano Kaede enjoyed it,” Akari corrects.

Karma presses on. “What’s the difference between Kayano Kaede and Akari Yukimura? Actors always speak about giving a part of themselves to their character when they act, but you’re going against that principle. Why would you condition yourself to eat sweets just for a role? Isn’t it-”

“Look, my sister died, okay?” Akari snaps. “Kayano Kaede likes sweets because she’s bubbly and cheerful and people like her eat sweet things, but Akari Yukimura is a bitter individual who watched her sister get impaled through the chest and watched her murderer constantly  _ gorge _ himself on sugar.” 

She sighs, flops back down on her bed, and swings an arm over her eyes. “God, I’m so tired.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Karma’s observing her quietly when she looks back up.

“Look, just,” she says, and sits back up to open a pudding cup.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to-”

“Shut up,” she says. Takes a bite of pudding. “This is gross. Reminds me of my childhood.”

Karma snorts. 

Another bite. “Ugh. I feel the calories building up. How do you drink your strawberry milk all day and still keep so fit? You have to share your routine.”

Karma has his pudding cup open too, now. He says between bites, “I exercise a lot. You stayed plenty slim when Kayano ate all that pudding.”

“Do you know how much energy went into these tentacles?” She says. “So many. I ate like a pig. I’m going to have to cut down half my calorie intake with my weight loss regime gone.”

Karma grins at her. “Maybe we can exercise together.”

Kayano opens her mouth, slowly slides her scoop of pudding off her spoon, and watches a pink flush bloom on Karma Akabane’s cheeks. She narrows her eyes at him, and he looks mildly intimidated.

“Are you hitting on me, Karma Akabane?” She says.

“That,” Karma says, swallowing, “entirely depends.” His cup is empty. “Do you still like Nagisa?”

“Yes,” she says. She’s not going to lie about that.

“Cool,” Karma says. “Then no, I’m not.”

Akari rolls her eyes. She dumps her now empty cup into his hands. “Throw these for me.”

"Okay,” Karma says.

Nagisa wasn’t her first kiss by far. She’d had many stage kisses with other actors, and she’s experienced falling in love multiple times on set. She knows what it’s supposed to be like, in theory, and she knows she has a crush on Nagisa. Objectively, Nagisa's not a hard guy to like. 

Akari wishes she didn't. Look where a husband got her sister? A man made Irina Jelavic into soft putty. Was this what she was destined for, going down a path with emotions? 

Boys, she decides, just weren't worth it. Nagisa or no Nagisa, Akari had her own life to focus on; her career, her schoolwork. 

If only her heart got the memo.

But she’s not going to keep dwelling over Nagisa Shiota. Nagisa was just a boy, nobody in the grand scheme of things, and Akari had so much else think about, she couldn’t afford getting side-tracked by her feelings or chasing a guy who clearly isn’t interested back.

Akari was… over it. Kayano had a crush on Nagisa but Akari didn't.

Feelings didn't work that way! 

The stupid thing about acting is that giving a little bit of yourself to your characters meant that a little bit of Akari did like Nagisa, and a little bit of Akari did like pudding, and a little bit of Akari did miss sweet things. So that little bit of Akari, at most of Akari's consternation, finds herself buying and opening a cup of pudding.

"I thought Akari Yukimura didn't like pudding," Karma says, leaning over her. "Or am I speaking to Kayano Kaede today?"

"Whatever you want," Akari says. She didn't think it was too important to draw the distinction whilst in 3-E and the class seemed more comfortable with her as Kayano Kaede, so she continues to keep her hair up in her twin ponytails and dyed her roots back to green. 

Karma didn't seem to care much but he seemed more inclined to call her Akari Yukimura, or at least he did so more than the rest of the class, excluding Itona and Bitch-sensei.

The latter two had experience in identity loss. It's refreshing, Akari thinks, to hear her real name again, but she supposes she wouldn’t mind being Kayano Kaede for a little while longer for 3-E. They’re her friends, after all, even if she’s sure she’d lost a little bit of her footing with them.

At least Karma and Nakamura are still maintaining their status quo, she thinks, even if it’s to tease her about the kiss. Akari Yukimura rolls her eyes at it but Kayano Kaede is endlessly flustered, and being a little bit of both, Akari’s torn. But she blushes a pretty red and ties her hair back up and shakes her head and says, “leave me alone!”

Karma laughs at her. She itches to shove her foot into his face. Karma Akabane is an enigma, she thinks, but she’s an expert at reading people and she decides that Karma Akabane is a shy boy under all his seemingly rebellious persona. He has a sweet tooth, he drinks strawberry milk and eats candy and eats pudding, and rather coincidentally, so did Kayano Kaede. But strangely enough, she thinks, Kayano and Karma never did truly bond over sweets, they had become friends because they were both friends with Nagsia. 

Kayano tries to convince her that Nagisa  _ is  _ the sweet thing between both of them. Akari waves her away because yes, but no, and the less she lets Kayano think about Nagisa, the better. 

Ironically enough, she thinks, Akari was the one who hates sweet things, but here she was, finally becoming friends with Karma Akabane.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I was thinking about this fic again, and so I decided to... update it. Yay, maybe?

“I made it less sweet this time,” Karma is saying, “more savory. There’s a bit of osmanthus-”

“You made this?”

“Uh, yeah,” Karma says. He looks down at his pudding cup, at his swinging feet. They’re on the roof on top of the 3-E classroom building, overlooking the hill. Akari knows this place like the back of her hand, they all do. Even now, she pictures all the other ways her assassination attempt could have gone, the multiple angles she could have tried instead, and she doesn’t see herself succeeding in any of them.

“Are you sure you’re not trying to romance me, Karma Akabane?” She says, leaning back.  “I’ve seen all the romance tropes in the world, I’ve lived them. Making pudding for a girl? You might give someone the wrong idea.” 

“I just like cooking,” Karma says, sounding a little embarrassed. “I’ve never tried making pudding before and you seem like a good guinea pig.”

Akari hums. She closes her eyes.

When she opens them again, Karma is on his back, looking up at the sky. He’s done with his pudding, so Akari finishes off hers and lies back with him, hands over her stomach. “What are you going to do when Koro-sensei is killed?”

“I don’t know,” Karma says. “Move on, I guess. What else can we do?”

He’s right, she thinks. There really is nothing else to be done. “Seeking senseless revenge is an option,” she jokes, “although that would hardly do any good.”

“It brought you here, didn’t it,” Karma says. “It wasn’t senseless. It’s justified.”

Akari’s heart warms. Not many people have said she was right to wish to impale Koro-sensei’s head on a stick. 

“What will you do?”

“Go back to filming,” Akari says. “I have a career.”

“Very career-oriented,” Karma notes.

“You want to be a bureaucrat, right?” She turns to him. “Interesting choice. Not really what I expected of you, if I’m honest,” she pauses, “but I think I can see it.”

“What could you envision me doing?” Karma asks.

“Pastry chef,” Akari says immediately. Karma lets out a bark of laughter. 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” he says. “Why didn’t you give Nagisa the chocolates for Valentines?”

“Why are you still on that?” Akari sighs. “Kayano was scared. She thought Nagisa wouldn’t get it.”

“What about Akari Yukimura?” Karma asks.

“Are you fishing?” Akari says. “Akari doesn’t want boys. She thinks boys are useless.”

Karma hums. “That’s sad.”

“Kinda is,” she sighs. “Nagisa is… great. He’s single minded and driven to his goals, he’s passionate about becoming a teacher, but…”  Karasuma-sensei was passionate and she could see what drew Bitch-sensei to him, but she can also see how their relationship would crumble. Yanagisawa was directional and threw everything, even his wife, away. Akari didn’t have time for people who didn’t have time for her.

But. “Maybe one day,” Akari says, “I’ll have time to think about all of this.”

“When Nagisa finally achieves his goals?”

“He’ll never do that,” Akari closes her eyes again. “I can see it already. He’ll never be able to live up to the image Koro-sensei left behind and he’ll crumble under the weight of it.”

“Everybody thought Koro-sensei seemed to be the perfect teacher,” Karma says. “But he’s a killer. So many people had to die for him to get where he got us.”

“I only saw him as my sister’s killer, for a very long time,” Akari says. “She did foolish, foolish things for love. It just isn’t worth it.”

“But she made her choice,” Karma says. “She chose Koro-sensei instead of Yanagisawa.”

Akari laughs. She leans into Karma’s side. There’s still pudding on her tongue, and her sister is still dead, but maybe she had made a choice, and they move on.  “Maybe one day I’ll like pudding again,” she says.

“I’ll keep making them until you do,” Karma says. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Akari/Karma makes me soft.
> 
> But also can I just say I'm a little miffed that ao3 red-lined "osmanthus"? Yeah, you guys don't know what it is either, it's fine, it's a kinda-sweet kinda-bitter flower and osmanthus flower jelly is great. But it's a word.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, and there's that.
> 
> I originally had a little bit longer planned but it turned out very... strange, is all I can say, and didn't quite fit in so I omitted it from the rest of the fic. If I ever find time to review it I might update this. Thanks for reading!


End file.
